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Which way forward for archaeoastronomy? West Kennet Avenue as a test case.

Lionel Sims

University of East London

Address up to 14th August 2010: Poppy Cottage, The Street, Great Saling, Braintree, Essex CM7 5DT, United Kingdom

Address from 14th August 2010: Lavender Cottage, Tye Green, Near Elsenham, Essex CM22 6DY.

Referees:

J. McKim Malville kimmalville@hotmail.com

Nicholas Campion ncampion@caol.demon.co.uk

Paul Valentine P.Valentine@uel.ac.uk

Giulio Magli giulio.magli@polimi.it

Fabio Silva fabpsilva@gmail.com

Number of Manuscript pages: 24

Number of Figures: 6.

Number of Tables: 1.

Running header: Which way forward for archaeoastronomy?

Name: Lionel Sims

Email addresses (please use both): lionel.sims@btinternet.com; L.D.Sims@uel.ac.uk

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Abstract

Neither statistical ‘green’ nor ethnographic ‘brown’ European and American styles of

archaeoastronomy have so far provided convincing interpretations of the meaning of prehistoric

monument alignments. Statistical tests of the null hypothesis never reach the level of meaning, and

contemporary ethnographic data cannot be equated with the cultures of prehistory. Gains have

been made. Since the 1980’s European archaeoastronomy has established rigorous field work

methods and scientific procedures that guard against the over-interpretation of prehistoric

monument alignments that characterised the discipline in preceding decades. However, the

discipline still has to embrace those procedures that can interpret unique prehistoric monuments

rather than just regional groups of monuments, and to interpret a growing data base which includes

many combined alignments on lunar standstills and the sun’s solstices. These hesitations seem to

flow from a reticence to provoke an otherwise sceptical archaeology establishment. This paper

argues that archaeoastronomy can perform an invaluable function with four-field anthropology

(archaeology, social anthropology, biological anthropology and linguistics) as a keystone discipline

within such a multi-disciplinary arch. The paper demonstrates such a role through a critique of the

present archaeological interpretations of the paradoxical approach of the West Kennet Avenue to

the Avebury circle and henge in Wiltshire, England. It finds that the archaeology of cattle-herding

monument building cultures and the anthropology of brideprice subverting brideservice can be

synthesised with the archaeoastronomy of lunar-solar combined alignments to confirm an emergent

model of an elite cattle-owning male-dominated cosmology which both continues and displaces an

ancient lunar-governed hunting and gathering ritual system onto a solar timescale.

Keywords

Archaeoastronomy; archaeology; anthropology; West Kennet Avenue; lunar-solar; brideprice;

emergence.

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Which Way Forward For Archaeoastronomy? West Kennet Avenue As A Test Case.

Lionel Sims

University of East London

1. Introduction

Archaeoastronomy has been characterised as divided between its European ‘green’ wing that

narrowly uses statistical techniques, compared to the ‘brown’ archaeoastronomy of America where

a 'rich ethnographic and ethno-historical record (...) relegate[s] statistical arguments to a secondary

supporting role' (Ruggles & Saunders 1993, p.15). This suggested division within the discipline is

overdrawn and cannot explain present problems in the discipline. While surviving cultures and

rescue anthropology have been able to celebrate and record some of the precious messages of

Amerindian cultures, it remains the case that the archaeoastronomy of the two thousand year old

Newark Earthworks, Ohio, for example, have no known cultural descendents. Scholars in this area of

‘brown’ archaeoastronomy have had to resort to exactly those statistical techniques usually

associated with the ‘green’ Europeans (Hively & Horn 2006). Contrarily, recent statistical findings in

Britain for an abundance of lunar alignments in prehistoric monuments (Ruggles 1999) converge

with the anthropological data of many cultures around the world which suggest that they have

entrained their ritual cycles with those of the moon (Knight 1991). Yet although we can reference

modern low latitude hunter-gatherers such as the !Kung and Hadzabe (Power & Watts 1997) and

high latitude reindeer herders such as the Saami (Ahlbäck 1987), all of whom synchronise their

economic and ritual life by lunar and lunar-solar phases, or Palaeolithic lunar calendar sticks

(Marshak 1972), simply accumulating confirming evidence will not allow us to leap over the

inductivist dilemma that these ethnographic exemplars are not the cattle herders who also hunted

and occasionally planted who actually built the monuments of the late Neolithic British Isles (Thomas

1999). Some other method beyond counter-posing the ethnography of recent cultures and the

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statistics of prehistoric monuments is required to address the problem shared by both American and

British archaeoastromers - that we have no direct ethnographic data of the builders of prehistoric

monuments.

The distinction between ‘green’ and ‘brown’ archaeoastronomy is also not useful when we try to

understand the achievements of the statistical method to the recent history of the discipline in

Europe. Over the last 40 years European archaeoastronomy has successfully transcended the

shortcomings of the work of Hawkins and Thom (Heggie 1981; Ruggles 1999). It has rebutted claims

for the over-interpretation of monuments’ alignments by establishing rigorous field work methods

and the statistical analysis of regional groups of monuments, so establishing that many prehistoric

monuments have ‘astronomical’ alignments intentionally built into their design. In Europe these

gains have been made in spite of a largely sceptical archaeology establishment. However, such has

been the strength of this scepticism that European archaeoastronomy has settled into a narrow

routine seemingly in an effort to gain wider acceptance. While providing a way to reject the null

hypothesis, the statistical approach cannot be used for testing intentional alignments in unique

monuments such as Stonehenge or the Newark Earthworks. This leaves the field open for other

disciplines to monopolise such unique and defining monuments at the expense of any

archaeoastronomical input. Yet at least four other methods are available that can interrogate

individual monuments. Monte Carlo modelling constructs a virtual population of randomly

generated alternative ‘unique’ structures which allow statistically testing for the null hypothesis. This

procedure generates a set of pseudo-data assuming the null hypothesis is true, and by comparing

the actual data against the simulated data we can test whether chance or intentional design can

explain a unique monument’s alignments (Hively & Horn 2006; Ruggles 1999). A quantified

landscape phenomenology looks at the landscape context of any monument as a region of

alternatives, so facilitating tests for whether the actually chosen site exhibits any particular portfolio

of properties which may include an ‘astronomical’ dimension. To do this we systematically search for

all the logically possible ways a monument complex could have been located in its local landscape.

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By comparing the phenomenological and qualitative experience of each simulated alternative route

and design against the actually chosen arrangement, we can quantitatively test whether there

emerges a suite of embodied experience not available in any other location (Sims 2009). Isolating

detailed features of a monument that are unexplained by other hypotheses allows testing for an

astronomical property (Ruggles 1999; North 1996; Sims 2006). And virtual modelling of monuments

within accurate computer models of landscape and skyscape provides another test (Macdonald

2007). Together with the statistical analysis of regional groups of monuments, these five methods

constitute a significant battery of techniques to test the null hypothesis for intentional alignments

for both regional groups and individual monuments.

The discipline has also become characterised by an inclination to seek single axial alignments for any

one monument, and to define the builder’s cosmology as limited and defined by that single

alignment. Thus a regional group with axial alignments on winter solstice would be seen as having a

distinct cosmology to another regional group with summer solstice alignments (Hoskin 2001). This is

in spite of many well attested cases of complex monuments exhibiting a grammar of combined

alignments arranged in parallel, transverse and reverse pairings (Ruggles 1999; North 1996; Hively

and Horn 2006). Therefore unique monuments like Stonhenge and Avebury stone circles that

possess alignments on both winter and summer solstice settings confound this limitation (North

1996). And even though one of the most impressive field work reports and statistical analyses ever

conducted in archaeoastronomy has found a preponderance of lunar alignments (southern major

and minor standstills in particular) in five regional groups of prehistoric monuments in the British

Isles (Ruggles 1999), both the author and the discipline are reticent to submit lunar data sets to

intense investigation. This is in keeping with a deep assumption within archaeology that such is the

complexity of the moon’s horizon properties compared to those of the sun, that farming cultures

just emerging out of foraging lack the sophistication to design monuments with lunar alignments.

This view is contradicted by that of anthropology, which sees hunter-gatherers as fully human, as

‘sophisticated’ as agriculturalists, and who use lunar cycles to time their ritual life (Knight 1991, Sims

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2006). ‘It is evident from this discussion that a serious problem in studying cultural astronomy is the

lack of a rigorous methodology for combining evidence from ...[these] three main disciplines...’

(Ruggles & Saunders 1993, p. 15). However, in the interests of carving out a professional discipline

acceptable to academe, present archaeoastronomical practice tends to focus on statistical methods

to test groups of monuments reduced to single axial alignments on the sun.

Science should not be limited to the socio-political pressures of institutional acceptance. We can

raise our sights and include in our aims simultaneously testing models other than null from a number

of disciplines that predict different ‘astronomies’ for ancestral cultures. For example a recent palaeo-

anthropological model of cultural origins suggests an initial situation in which coalitionary strategies

of mega-fauna hunters would have maximised their fitness by entraining their social and ritual life

with the phases of the moon. The subsequent collapse of these coalitions with the mass extinction

of big game at the end of the last ice age would have impacted upon their ritual systems, and the

consequent degradation of the original lunar template should be traceable through a series of

transformational adjustments. In particular this model would predict that while power was originally

mobilised at dark moon by female coalitions able to synchronise their cycles in seclusion rituals, later

male monopolisation of ritual power would have to accommodate and displace dark moon

symbolism onto solar or other cycles (Knight 1991, Knight et al. 1995, Sims 2006, Sims 2009). By the

late Neolithic the prediction would be that monument builders would have complex cosmology in

the service of an elite to both appropriate and subvert a lunar cosmology once held in common. This

model and its predictions is precisely different from recent archaeological models, which sees the

first ‘agriculturalists’ as emerging from forager ‘primitiveness’, and in which the earliest monuments

would at most have simple alignments on the sun. By selecting these archaeological and

anthropological models to interpret monuments, and testing them alongside the evidence of

archaeoastronomy, we can suggest how robust datasets drawn from these three (or more)

disciplines have a limited number of combinations, which in turn allows only a very few

reconstructions of an ‘emergent’ cosmology (Sims 2009). This paper demonstrates this argument

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through examining claims made by some archaeologists for the approach made by the West Kennet

Avenue into the Avebury Henge, in Wiltshire, England.

[FIGURE 1 GOES HERE]

2. Archaeology and the West Kennet Avenue approach to the Avebury henge and circle

The West Kennet Avenue is one part of the unique Avebury monument complex built during the

third millennium BCE that connects the Sanctuary wood and stone circle with the Avebury henge

and circle (Fig. 1). The Avenue was composed of about 100 pairs of parallel stone pillars, of which

those remaining after centuries of abuse have an average height of 2.26metres arranged in

quadrangular settings 14.7 by 23.2 metres apart (Sims, Field Notes).The excavations and restorations

carried out by Keiller and Piggot showed that this part of the Avenue was built in series of ten

straight sections, not in a smooth serpentine shape as suggested by the eighteenth century

antiquarian Stukeley in Fig. 1 (Keiller and Piggot 1936). Where stones were missing, they placed

concrete markers above the excavated stones holes where they had once stood, so providing a

record of the northern section of the Avenue. Stones and markers are identified by numbered pairs

1-37 going south on leaving the Avebury henge, and by row ‘a’ on the east and ‘b’ on the west.

Paradoxically Keiller’s plan survey of this section of the West Kennet Avenue shows it heading away

from the southern entrance of the henge from pair 13 to 6, while from pairs 6 to 1 it seems to repair

the ‘error’ by an awkward zig-zag route to then connect with the southern entrance (Fig. 2). Recent

archaeological commentary on the Avenue has suggested two interpretations for this convoluted

approach route. Burl claimed that this was a mistake of the prehistoric builders in starting the

Avenue at both ends but failing to anticipate an accurate direction for each section to join up (Burl

2002). Gillings & Pollard argue that Keiller’s excavation plan is a mistake and re-excavation will

establish a more direct route for this section of the Avenue (Gillings and Pollard 2004, p. 78).

[FIGURE 2 GOES HERE]

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Burl’s suggestion of the builder’s poor route-making abilities might be taken seriously if the join in

two sections took place in the middle of the 2.4 kilometre Avenue, but it is unconvincing when the

‘poor join’ at stone 4b is just 30 metres from the southern entrance. If it were a mistake, then it

cannot explain why elsewhere in the Avebury monument complex are displayed highly accurate pre-

planned features (Sims 2009). Lastly, an earlier antiquarian of the seventeenth century, John Aubrey,

recorded how the other end of the Avenue connected to the western entrance of the Sanctuary in

exactly the same dog-leg design, the same flat sides of the stones in line with the Avenue route, and

the same device of using a change of slope in the landscape in the final approach to the Sanctuary as

in the northern approach to the Avebury henge and circle (Fig. 3). However, Burl’s view of the

builder’s logistical incompetence is consistent with the archaeological assumption of farming

revolution theory that they were ‘howling barbarians’ (Atkinson 2003) just emerging from the

primitivism of foraging.

[FIGURE 3 GOES HERE]

Pollard’s suggestion that Keiller’s excavation record is inaccurate is also suspect. It is true Keiller

made some mistakes in his record of the West Kennet Avenue. He placed a concrete marker at

position 30b, where no stone had ever been placed, and he failed to place a marker at position 4a

where a stone had once stood (Smith 1965; Sims forthcoming), although these are errors Pollard

would find hard to accommodate in his theory of avenues. Pollard sees Avenues as lithicised

commemorations of pioneer ancestral pathways into a region, and considers it improbable that

those Mesolithic foragers would have taken such an indirect route as Keiller identified. It also suits

the sensibilities of the modern tourist board for the monument (the National Trust) who have

mowed a short cut along this section of the Avenue which ignores stone pair 6 in a streamlining of its

actual route (Fig. 4). But this is a theoretical, not empirical, case for challenging the zig-zag Avenue

route near its connection with the southern henge entrance which would fall if we can find another

theory which can explain the archaeological evidence of Keiller’s site excavation.

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[FIGURE 4 GOES HERE]

3. Anthropology and the shift from brideservice to brideprice.

We have two models from archaeology, the primitivist and memory models, which deny the

evidence of one of the most accomplished practitioners of the defining method of archaeology – site

excavation. Anthropology would be concerned that in the transition from Mesolithic foragers to

Neolithic ‘farmers’, key politico-economic changes were being ignored by this archaeological view,

and these may account for this paradoxical property of the Avenue. The switch from hunting and

gathering to cattle pastoralism involves hunting brideservice being subverted by cattle brideprice. In

pastoralism a man gains a permanent wife with a payment of cattle which would substitute for a

lifetime’s hunting services to her kin (Aberle 1961; Douglas 1969; Holden & Mace 2003; Jamieson

2010; Murdock 1949; Richards 1950; Schneider 1961). Women are now ‘wedlocked’ and men are

divided by differential cattle ownership. Or as Aberle put it: ‘the cow is the enemy of matriliny’

(Aberle 1961, p. 680). Thus, whereas farming revolution theory sees a rise in ‘civilisation’ from

foraging to agriculture, anthropology sees a socio-political reversal in marital and economic relations

combined with an advance in technology. Archaeoastronomy provides a method to test hypotheses

generated by these different models and a procedure to integrate elements of each model that

survive critique. Archaeological models emphasise single axial alignments on the sun or none at all.

Anthropological models predict lunar symbolism for hunting cultures that would be gradually

undermined by solar symbolism with the beginnings of pastoralism (Sims 2006). It should be possible

to observe traces of either paradigm in the paradox of an Avenue that until the last moment heads

away from its destination.

4. Unexplained design features of the West Kennet Avenue

We can begin by respecting the details of this section of the Avenue by looking for aspects of its

design which are unexplained by the current archaeological models. From pair 13 to 7 the Avenue is

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straight and takes us downhill towards the henge in a line that is a tangent to the outer south

western bank of the henge which continues on to the summit of Windmill Hill (Fig. 1). Just at the

point where the modern tourist footpath veers away from the Avenue in a modern shortcut, stone

pair 6b’s position continues veering away from the southern entrance by occupying the lowest point

in this section, only to require a sharp turn to the east uphill to pair 4, followed by another sharp

turn this time to the north to pair 1 and so into the henge (Fig. 2). A route that loses height to then

require immediately regaining it is not what we would expect of Mesolithic foragers, just as tourists

today seem to agree by taking the modern shortcut! However, such a strategy is perfect for lowering

the eye of the observer processing along the Avenue. Passing stone 4b, which is the only remaining

stone from markers 1-12 along this section of the Avenue, this flat quadrangular slab of a stone (Fig

4) is aligned in line with a route consistent with the zig-zag alignments confirmed by Keiller’s

excavation (Fig. 2). In all these respects - the Avenue as tangent to the outer henge bank rather than

entrance, a route that crosses contours to change the altitude of the observer’s eye, and the flat

sides of a surviving stone confirming these layouts – Keiller’s record of the northern terminus

replicates all of these properties that we find in Aubrey’s record of the southern terminus of the

Avenue. Unless Pollard has evidence that all the concrete markers from pair 12 to 5 are incorrectly

placed then the conclusion must be that Keiller’s record is correct and needs to be interpreted with

some model that transcends the limits of the primitivist and memory models. An alternative model

is suggested by the properties we have just noted. A circuitous route which manipulates the eye

height of the observer is simultaneously altering the altitude of the surrounding horizons. Having set

aside two archaeological models we can now test with archaeoastronomy whether horizon events

coincide with the arrangement of stones along this restored section of the Avenue.

[FIGURE 5 GOES HERE]

5. Method

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We have no knowledge of how the builders of the Avenue might have aligned paired and adjacent

stones along the Avenue. For those archaeoastronomers wedded to a ‘Thomist’ expectation for

highly accurate alignments (Thom & Thom 1976; see Heggie 1981 and Ruggles 1999 for critique) this

poses a problem. The average mid-width of the surviving stones is 1.7 metres and pairs are placed

on average 14.7 metres apart and diagonals 27.5 metres apart. This allows maximum average ranges

across alternative sighting alignments of 11° for paired stones and 5.5° for diagonal stones – huge

ranges for those accustomed to plotting alignments accurate to fractions of a degree. However, if

you accept an ‘ethnographic’ (Ruggles 1999) or ‘religionist’ (North 1996) motivation for ancient sky

lore, then this large range of sightings over the tops of stones when viewed from adjacent stones is

an advantage for constructing the artifice of observing cosmic bodies entering or leaving the stones

at settings and risings. Seen this way, the stones can be constructed as ‘portals’ for the passage of

solstice suns and standstill moons between the heavens and the underworld. In keeping with this

ethnographic logic a range of 5° to discriminate any horizon event of the sun or moon along the top

of any stone when viewed from an adjacent stone is the minimum accuracy required to capture this

effect (Sims 2010). While farming revolution theory would find it difficult to accept the high fidelity

alignments predicted by the Thom model of archaeoastronomy, there is no reason why it cannot

accept this ‘religionist’ understanding of prehistoric sky lore. We can classify all of the ten logically

possible adjacent alignments for any pair of stones as shown in Fig 5. Azimuth field sightings were

made in both directions with a compass accurate to half a degree, and horizon altitudes measured

with a clinometer. Field work was repeated three times with different observers to check for

recording errors. In addition a virtual model of the Avenue using Keiller’s site survey plan was built

independently of this fieldwork by MacDonald, integrated into an accurate virtual landscape using

Ordnance Survey topographic data, all combined with an accurate and realistic moving skyscape that

could be set for any date between 4k BCE to the present (MacDonald 2007). An example of one of

the many alignments captured from this computer simulation is shown in Fig 6, and the field data

results are shown in Table 1 (and see Appendix 1).

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[FIGURE 6 GOES HERE]

6. Findings

While this paper concentrates on the Avenue properties between pairs 7 and 1, the 167 lunar-solar-

cardinal alignments shown in Table 1 between pairs 37-1 are far more than can be accounted for by

chance alone (Sims 2010; Appendix 1). It is also clear that there is a good ‘archaeoastronomical’

reason why the approach route of the Avenue does not head straight for the southern entrance, but

veers to the north-west at a tangent to the outer henge bank – it’s line is dedicated to align on the

summer solstice sunsets between pairs 12 and 7 with a switch to the northern minor standstill

moonsets between 7 and 6 (orientations 9 & 10). The subsequent zig-zags between pairs 6 and 1,

rather than being ‘awkward’ or a mistake are also made to maximise further cardinal and lunar-solar

alignments. Interestingly, at the junction of pairs 7 and 6, the main point at which the Avenue

changes direction towards the southern entrance, there are combined cross cardinal alignments to

the west and the north. These cross-cardinal alignments match the builders’ gender inflected burial

practices in which gender is demarcated by cardinal alignment, with an 80% emphasis on male

burials all orientated to the north (Tuckwell 1975). It is also interesting that while the main direction

towards the southern entrance by way of the Avenue concentrates on summer solstice sunsets up

until pair 7, from then on all remaining adjacent pairs emphasise lunar alignments on northern

minor and major lunar standstill moonsets into the henge. This lunar-solar combination of summer

solstice sunsets and northern standstill moonsets, predictably and invariably generates a

synchronisation of dark moon at summer solstice – exactly what would be predicted by a lunar

governed ritual system based upon dark moon seclusion rituals transposed onto a solar timescale

(Sims 2007). For those processing north along and outside the parallel rows of Avenue stones, they

would have seen a changing vista of stone combinations of first summer solstice setting suns setting

into their tops followed by, twice every nineteen years, the setting minor and major standstill

northern moonsets. Fig 6 shows a computer simulation of this effect. At that part of the Avenue

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when its zig-zag route disallowed a lunar-solar alignment across stones, they contrived to

manipulate their position to construct an alignment on north – a direction that they also used to

align male corpses. Solstice suns and standstill moons setting into stone tops and the northern

centre of the heavens would be seen when travelling alongside the Avenue when moving towards

the Avebury stone circle, and risings when moving towards the wood and stone monument of the

Sanctuary.

[TABLE 1 GOES HERE]

7. Conclusion

The ‘astronomical’ properties we have found for the West Kennet Avenue approach to the Avebury

henge and circle are exactly what would be predicted by an anthropological model in which a male-

dominated cattle herder society is appropriating and subverting a lunar-governed ritual cycle onto a

lunar-solar cosmology. This model can therefore provide an interpretation for the excavation

findings of Keiller and Piggot which modern archaeology cannot. Where once foragers had

naturalistically entrained their rituals with lunar cycles, adapting to mega-fauna extinction through

the technical advance of domesticated cattle as moveable property, gender and economic relations

are now characterised by compulsion and inequality. Now ritual specialists had to construct ‘the

pathways to the gods’ to keep a connection with their ancestral beliefs while simultaneously

undermining them. This model both explains the findings of archaeoastronomy and at the same time

integrates those findings that remain from archaeology and anthropology. In this multidisciplinary

integration of data sets, it is archaeoastronomy that is the keystone discipline in the intellectual

arch. A unique Avenue aligned on sun, moon and cardinals whose route goes the ‘wrong’ way for

archaeology may point the ‘right’ way for the future of archaeoastronomy.

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Appendix 1

1. See West Kennet Avenue azimuths (adjusted for horizon) data files at:

XLS (Office 2003)

http://lionelsims.co.uk/Data_Files/Avebury/West_Kennet_Avenue_Alignments_Stones_37-

1.xls

XLSX (Office 2007)

http://lionelsims.co.uk/Data_Files/Avebury/West_Kennet_Avenue_Alignments_Stones_37-

1.xlsx

2. Azimuth bearings are made across the centres of stones.

3. If we round the average of each of the ten Avenue straight sections to four paired stones, on

average they generate nearly 37 possible alignments each, taking into account the two end

pairs smaller number of possible alignments. As each alignment span is 5°, the two central

pairs could possibly converge with alignments that cover a total range of 80° (12 lunar-solar

and 4 cardinal) and the two end pairs a range of 60°. An average total range of 76° gives a

76/360, just over one fifth, chance of hitting an alignment by chance. But since 16.7 average

alignments are found for each of the ten sections, rounded to 17, this signifies that we have

found 17 actual alignments out of 37 possible – just under one half. This is far more than can

be accounted for by accident alone.

4. Notice that a run of combination 2 stones between pairs 37-21 generate in all but two cases

(31 & 35) alignments on the northern minor standstill moonrises. The standard deviation of

all these azimuths is 4.2°. However, these alignments are sustained across three different

sections of the Avenue. At stone pair 32 and again at stone pair 28 the Avenue veers to the

right, first by about 3° then by about 5° (Fig. 2), yet keeps these orientations on the northern

minor moonrises. These small changes in direction reduce the uphill gradient of the Avenue

15

route and so adjust the horizon altitude which in combination with the slight change in

direction is necessary to sustain the constant alignment. The same effect operates on the

western horizon, although here with three closely adjacent alignments, where between

stone pairs 37-19 these changes in Avenue direction combined with slight alterations in

stone positions allows a run of alignments along combination 8 on the northern minor and

northern major moonsets and summer solstice sunsets.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Sasha Stephens and Jorg Endelman for assistance in conducting the field work

for this paper, and to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their comments and advice.

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Anthropological Society (N.S.), 15, pp. 386-408.

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transcending the individualistic fallacy in cultural astronomy by considering monument design and

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Case.

18

Smith, I. (1965). Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller 1925-1939. Oxford

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the 1990s. Unwin Hyman, London.

19

Tables

Table 1 Alignments of West Kennet Avenue stone pairs 1-37 with adjacent and opposite stones

Comb: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Pair

1 NMajS

2 SMinR NMinS

3 SMajR South SMinS NMajS

4 NMinR South WEST NMajS

5 SMajR South North

6 North WSS NMajS

7 SSR WSR WSR SMajS West NMinS NMinS

8 East SMinR SMinR SSS SSS

9 East SMinR SMinR SMajS West NMinS SSS

10 WSR SMinR WSS SSS SSS

11 East WSR WSS SSS SSS

12 East SMinR SMinR SMajS West SSS SSS

13 WSR SMajR SMajS West NMinS NMinS

14 NMajR WSR WSR SMajS West SSS NMinS

15 NMajR East WSS West NMinS NMinS

16 NMajR South WSS West

17 North NMinR SMinR SMajR SMajR South SSS

18 North NMinR SMinR South NMajS NMajS

19 North SSR NMinS

20 North SSR SMinR South SMinS NMinS NMajS

21 North NMinR WSR SMajR South NMinS NMajS

22 North NMinR SMinR South SSS NMajS

23 North NMinR SMinR South SSS

24 North NMinR SMinR NMajS

25 NMinR SMinR SSS

26 NMinR SMinR SSS

27 NMinR SMinR NMajS

28 North NMinR SMinR NMajS

29 North NMinR WSR SSS

30 North NMinR SMinR NMinS

31 WSR SSS

32 NMinR NMajS

33 North NMinR SMinR NMinS

34 North NMinR SMinR NMinS

35 SMajR NMinS

36 North NMinR SMajR SMajR SSS

37 North NMinR SMinR SMajR SMajR SSS

Note

For any pair of stones with adjacent pairs on either side, the ten possible combinations of pairings from the central pair to all six stones are

shown in Fig. 2. These combinations are numbered clockwise 1-10 as azimuths from North starting at the northern diagonal and are the

column headings in this table. The row headings identify the number of the stone pair positions 1 -37. The azimuth bearings for zero

horizon altitude at this latitude of 51° 25´ for lunar standstills, the sun’s solstices and cardinal alignments (not to be confused with

equinoxes) are: North 0°/360°; Northern Major standstill moonrise (NMajR) 40.5°; Summer Solstice sunrise (SSR) 48°; Northern Minor

standstill moonrise (NMinR) 59°; East 90°; Southern Minor standstill moonrise (SMinR) 121°; Winter Solstice sunrise (WSR) 129°; Southern

Major standstill moonrise (SMajR) 141.5°; South 180°; Southern Major standstill moonset (SMajS) 218.5°; Winter Solstice sunset (WSS)

231°; Southern Minor standstill moonset (SMinS) 239°; West 270°; Northern Minor standstill moonset (NMinS) 301°; Summer Solst ice

sunset (SSS) 312°; Northern Major Standstill moonset (NMajS) 320.5°.

20

Figure captions

Fig. 1 Main Features of the Avebury monument complex according to Stukeley (Mortimer 2003, pp.

50-51).

Key

1 Silbury Hill; 2 Start of Beckhampton Avenue at Fox Covert; 3 Beckhampton Avenue; 4 Longstones Cove; 5 River Winterbourne; 6 Avebury

Circle and Henge; 7 Northern inner circle; 8 Southern inner circle; 9 West Kennet Avenue; 10 Sanctuary; 11 Waden Hill; 12 Windmill Hill.

Fig. 2 Keiller & Piggots’ plan of the excavated northern section of the West Kennet Avenue (Smith

1965, Fig 71).

Fig. 3 Aubrey’s plan of the West Kennet Avenue southern approach to the Sanctuary (Ucko: )

Note: a) The Avenue approach, just as at the northern end, heads away from the Sanctuary entrance b) The Avenue approach to the

Sanctuary is uphill, whereas at the northern approach to the Henge it is downhill c) Each row of the Avenue, before the final kink, is a

tangent to each of the nested stone circles of the Sanctuary, whereas at the northern approach to the Henge the Avenue is a tangent to

the outer bank d) the flats of the stones were in line with the direction of the row.

Fig. 4 The final approach of West Kennet Avenue to the Avebury henge.

Note: Author’s photo of the final approach section of the West Kennet Avenue to the Avebury henge, June 2010. The photo is taken from

position 6b looking towards stone 4b. The flat side of stone 4b points into the southern henge entrance but, unlike stones betwe en pairs

13-37, is orthogonal rather than in line to the direction between pairs 4-6. The Avebury Henge bank can be seen behind stone 4b. The

eastern terminus of the bank is located at the base of the large tree. Notice that the mowed tourist footpath ignores the area between

stone pair 6 in a modern shortcut.

Fig. 5 The ten possible orientations from any pair of stones to adjacent pairs.

Fig. 6 Computer simulation of virtual model of West Kennet Avenue with northern minor standstill

moon setting into stone 35b from left of stone 36a. Source: MacDonald 2009.

N.B. Notice that the half-degree diameter of the moon could, with slight adjustments in the viewing position of the observer,

accommodate a large range for observing this effect across the breadth of the stone from a distance of 27.5 metres

21

Figures

Fig. 1 Main Features of the Avebury monument complex according to Stukeley (Mortimer 2003, pp.

50-51).

Key

1 Silbury Hill; 2 Start of Beckhampton Avenue at Fox Covert; 3 Beckhampton Avenue; 4 Longstones Cove; 5 River Winterbourne; 6 Avebury

Circle and Henge; 7 Northern inner circle; 8 Southern inner circle; 9 West Kennet Avenue; 10 Sanctuary; 11 Waden Hill; 12 Windmill Hill.

Fig. 2 Keiller & Piggots’ plan of the excavated northern section of the West Kennet Avenue (Smith

1965, Fig 71).

22

Fig. 3 Aubrey’s plan of the West Kennet Avenue southern approach to the Sanctuary (Ucko et al.

1991, p.117)

Note: a) The Avenue approach, just as at the northern end, heads away from the Sanctuary entrance b) The Avenue approach to the

Sanctuary is uphill, whereas at the northern approach to the Henge it is downhill c) Each row of the Avenue, before the final kink, is a

tangent to each of the nested stone circles of the Sanctuary, whereas at the northern approach to the Henge the Avenue is a tangent to

the outer bank d) the flats of the stones were in line with the direction of the row.

23

Fig. 4 The final approach of West Kennet Avenue to the Avebury henge.

Note: Author’s photo of the final approach section of the West Kennet Avenue to the Avebury henge, June 2010. The photo is taken from

position 6b looking towards stone 4b. The flat side of stone 4b points into the southern henge entrance but, unlike stones between pairs

13-37, is orthogonal rather than in line to the direction between pairs 4-6. The Avebury Henge bank can be seen behind stone 4b. The

eastern terminus of the bank is located at the base of the large tree. Notice that the mowed tourist footpath ignores the area between

stone pair 6 in a modern shortcut.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Fig. 5 The ten possible orientations from any pair of stones to

adjacent pairs.

24

Fig. 6 Computer simulation of virtual model of West Kennet Avenue with northern minor standstill

moon setting into stone 35b from left of stone 36a. (Source: MacDonald 2009)

N.B. Notice that the half-degree diameter of the moon could, with slight adjustments in the viewing position of the observer,

accommodate a large range for observing this effect across the breadth of the stone from a distance of 27.5 metres